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> I don't think CS is a high social status field at all. This really struck home for me about 15 or so years ago. I was a "principal architect" at Travelocity

> I don't think CS is a high social status field at all. This really struck home for me about 15 or so years ago. I was a "principal architect" at Travelocity, which meant that I was involved in driving the most complex technical decisions of the site. I felt like I was really doing well for myself - it was the top of the "tech track" there. One day, corporate asked people who had graduated from a set of local universities to speak to graduates of those universities - since I had graduated from one, I told them I'd be interested. The woman I talked to actually seemed shocked and said (no exaggeration), "Oh, I'm sorry, I should have been more clear, we were looking for people further along in their careers".

jagger27 6y ago
What the hell? How did you respond to that?
- commandlinefan 6y ago
  I guess there's a lot I could have said, but what I actually said was "oh", and left.
  - ardit33 6y ago
    and that's why we are a low status profession... Instead of digging your heels, and telling her your speech will be much more beneficial to both the students and the company, you did the typical nerdy thing and avoided confrontation and just left
    - _visgean 6y ago
      What kind of confrontation could that be? "Oh but come on! I am important!" or "But I have moderately high salary!"? I think OP did the smart decision.
      - sixstringtheory 6y ago
        I would have started by asking what position she was looking for, and if she started all the way at the top like CEO, I’d whittle it down by starting with “don’t you think encouraging your entire class to aim only for the top, that you’ll be setting lots of them up for failure?” And if she didn’t relent, follow it up with “people who are on a CEO track need to know what life is like for those who build their products.” Or ask her whether she’s running a CS or MBA program for a cheeky jab. You’ll never know if you don’t ask, and there are no stupid questions.
        zanmat0 6y ago
        Its easy to come up with that after having thought it over for 30 seconds but on the spot, when what the person just told you comes as a shock, you're unlikely to muster up such a response.
        sixstringtheory 6y ago
        Oh I have plenty of that too. But it's usually the case that saying _anything_ reasonable is enough of a foot in the door to a wider conversation. And it's a lot like creativity, or math, or music... the more you do it, the better you get at it. It's like when you learn a new language, one of the first things you learn is how to say "I don't speak X well, please slow down" in that language. Same with debate: learn how to say "I'm trying to better understand" to prime the other person for a conversation. Sometimes they'll start talking for you–that's even a common negotiation tactic, to let the other person talk to basically give you a few points to think about questioning/rebutting, or look for contradictions.
    - mixmastamyk 6y ago
      That assumes plenty of time to think about what happened and formulate the best response. That's rarely possible in the roughly 1200 milliseconds available for a timely reply to a perceived insult. I think I'd only be able to do that if I'd had the same conversation previously. Come to think of it, sounds like just about every tech interview I've ever had.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - zelphirkalt 6y ago
    I'll admit, I was hoping for a heroic story of how that person was made aware of their mistake and begged for forgiveness :D
  - t-writescode 6y ago
    Do you still work there?
    - commandlinefan 6y ago
      No, I left nearly 10 years ago, but it wasn't related to that incident.
cheschire 6y ago
A colleague of mine referred to software engineering as a stepping stone for her. She never saw it as something she would do until retirement. It took years until I came around to the same realization for myself. It's significantly harder to coordinate and architect "layer 8" bullshit than it is to write apps or lay networks. And there's infinite layers of complexity in it as well. You don't hear a whole lot of people in management claiming it's fun like you do in software engineering. That is probably a clue. Well, it was for me anyways.
ryandrake 6y ago
Wish I had more than one upvote. This is a great story, one I wish more people would read who value "prestige" and "importance" in their careers. Being L9 Super Senior Software Engineer does not really give you any more credibility or prestige among the general public than you had as Entry Level Code Monkey. Nobody is going to ask you to so much as speak at a high school graduation or Rotary Club meeting just because you solely did the high level architecture for your company's suite of accounting apps.
JSavageOne 6y ago
Who were they looking for to speak? The C-Suite? If so, why even send emails to everyone in the first place?

jagger27 6y ago

What the hell? How did you respond to that?

commandlinefan 6y ago
I guess there's a lot I could have said, but what I actually said was "oh", and left.
- ardit33 6y ago
  and that's why we are a low status profession... Instead of digging your heels, and telling her your speech will be much more beneficial to both the students and the company, you did the typical nerdy thing and avoided confrontation and just left
  - _visgean 6y ago
    What kind of confrontation could that be? "Oh but come on! I am important!" or "But I have moderately high salary!"? I think OP did the smart decision.
    - sixstringtheory 6y ago
      I would have started by asking what position she was looking for, and if she started all the way at the top like CEO, I’d whittle it down by starting with “don’t you think encouraging your entire class to aim only for the top, that you’ll be setting lots of them up for failure?” And if she didn’t relent, follow it up with “people who are on a CEO track need to know what life is like for those who build their products.” Or ask her whether she’s running a CS or MBA program for a cheeky jab. You’ll never know if you don’t ask, and there are no stupid questions.
      - zanmat0 6y ago
        Its easy to come up with that after having thought it over for 30 seconds but on the spot, when what the person just told you comes as a shock, you're unlikely to muster up such a response.
        sixstringtheory 6y ago
        Oh I have plenty of that too. But it's usually the case that saying _anything_ reasonable is enough of a foot in the door to a wider conversation. And it's a lot like creativity, or math, or music... the more you do it, the better you get at it. It's like when you learn a new language, one of the first things you learn is how to say "I don't speak X well, please slow down" in that language. Same with debate: learn how to say "I'm trying to better understand" to prime the other person for a conversation. Sometimes they'll start talking for you–that's even a common negotiation tactic, to let the other person talk to basically give you a few points to think about questioning/rebutting, or look for contradictions.
  - mixmastamyk 6y ago
    That assumes plenty of time to think about what happened and formulate the best response. That's rarely possible in the roughly 1200 milliseconds available for a timely reply to a perceived insult. I think I'd only be able to do that if I'd had the same conversation previously. Come to think of it, sounds like just about every tech interview I've ever had.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- zelphirkalt 6y ago
  I'll admit, I was hoping for a heroic story of how that person was made aware of their mistake and begged for forgiveness :D
- t-writescode 6y ago
  Do you still work there?
  - commandlinefan 6y ago
    No, I left nearly 10 years ago, but it wasn't related to that incident.

cheschire 6y ago

A colleague of mine referred to software engineering as a stepping stone for her. She never saw it as something she would do until retirement. It took years until I came around to the same realization for myself. It's significantly harder to coordinate and architect "layer 8" bullshit than it is to write apps or lay networks. And there's infinite layers of complexity in it as well. You don't hear a whole lot of people in management claiming it's fun like you do in software engineering. That is probably a clue. Well, it was for me anyways.

ryandrake 6y ago

Wish I had more than one upvote. This is a great story, one I wish more people would read who value "prestige" and "importance" in their careers. Being L9 Super Senior Software Engineer does not really give you any more credibility or prestige among the general public than you had as Entry Level Code Monkey. Nobody is going to ask you to so much as speak at a high school graduation or Rotary Club meeting just because you solely did the high level architecture for your company's suite of accounting apps.

JSavageOne 6y ago

Who were they looking for to speak? The C-Suite? If so, why even send emails to everyone in the first place?